EXAMPLES OF MEDIA MANIPULATION

Artist Ben Heine creates a portrait of a mallard drake.

Anyone who has spent five minutes fooling with imaging software knows how simple tampering with a photograph can be. Programs such as Photoshop is probably the single best emblem of the immense new ~ and eminently abusable ~ power conferred on humanity by the digital revolution: With a little will and some patience, virtually anyone can do virtually anything to a photograph.

Once again, I show the art of Ben Heine who certainly takes much longer than a few minutes to create such beauty. These are two of his older work, photos I have enjoyed for a few years now. Ben is an open hearted and generous artist who shares his techniques and his work with the public. To see more of his work, please go here to his blog. Ben Heine ~ The Blog

More of Ben's dramatic examples of creative Photoshop manipulation.

Aside from art, as a journalistic tool, photo manipulation is highly suspect and controversial. People look to photographs as quasi-objective representations of firsthand data, as a form of verification or proof. As soon as the essential integrity of a photo is undermined, so is the relationship between the news provider and the news consumer.

I have always liked to include photos in my work to back up my words and add visual appeal and also because of my strong belief that one photograph is better than a million words. Because I come from a place of honesty, the images I use must as well.

There is never any hesitation to use imagery by Zoriah (above). His reputation as a world famous photographer with works displayed in museums and galleries depends upon his honesty and ethics ~ not to mention the passion that drives him to risk his life for his stories.

When untidy or unappealing objects are cleaned up or removed, the essence of that photo also quickly disappears. The unspoken contract between the photographer and the viewer is broken. The photo is no longer a glimpse of the scene. It is now an illustration: an interpretation with selective facts, categorized in a particular way, with some details highlighted, many others simply obliterated.

No need to clean up this photo of a damaged house in Gaza. Zoriah creates art even when depicting pain and loss. All he needs is skill and chutzpah. He wants his viewers to know him and writes freely about the political background and creation of each image on his journal.

There is no such thing as true objectivity, of course, in photography or any other medium. By its nature, a photograph is an incomplete and therefore slanted picture of reality ~ a stylized depiction that represents exactly what the photographer wants you to see, and no more. Each photograph tells a story, and we have to remember that behind every story is a storyteller such as Zoriah.

It's also worth recalling that conventional photo-manipulation has been around as long as the camera. Cropping alone is a powerful tool, and there are also plenty of basic darkroom techniques for removing or altering aspects of any photograph. Here is a very early example of such manipulation that was spotted, but not before it had made a painful impression on millions of unaware viewers for over twenty years.

The unretouched photo showing May 1944 new camp arrivals at Auschwitz. From Auschwitz Album 1978 (1st edition, Beate Klarsfeld Foundation, New York, 1978), photo No. 165.

Now there is smoke in the background behind the fence,
poles and new arrivals.
Caption at the Simon Wiesenthal Center home page:
As these prisoners were being processed for slave labor,
many of their friends and families were being gassed
and burned in the ovens in the crematoria.
The smoke can be seen in the background. June 1944.

As shown above, in the hands of a photo editor on a mission, this new digital sandbox threatens to cheapen journalism and even further undermine news consumers' confidence in the media. By making dramatic manipulations simple to effect and difficult to detect, photo-fiction threatens to exacerbate the climate of distrust.

We all know mainstream media cannot be trusted as far as we can spit into a high wind. At one of my diversion for fun sites I found this wonderful example of media manipulation just to remind you all of how easy it is to tamper with a photograph.

The photo series below I found at MIGHTY OPTICAL ILLUSIONS. What shocked and saddened me most was that many of the comments were from people who obviously did not "get it". Or they displayed totally off kilter responses that were the result of mainstream media tampering with information and imagery as well as the usual diversionary tactics used by some commenters. But in the format they were shown, it was a teaching moment for some I am sure.

The merciful soldier is giving water to a captured enemy.
See they aren't that bad are they? They take good care of their captives.

The merciless soldier aiming a gun at the head of an unarmed captive.
Is he wounded? Is he being tortured? How criminal is that?

The actual photograph is a combination of both interpretations.

In fact, that little article was so impressive to me that this morning when I saw a photo of a little Palestinian girl gazing up the gun of an Israeli soldier, I realized the photo meant nothing at all taken out of context as it was.

Coming from me, a dedicated supporter of the Palestinian people, that was quite an interesting reaction and gave me pause to think. Instead of just accepting the image as it seems, I looked at it quite objectively and saw just how it had been cropped to manipulate the opinion of the viewer.

What we are supposed to be seeing here is a child afraid of the gun wielding "bad guy".

Most likely she, along with many other Palestinians, mothers and older children, are moving through an Israeli checkpoint to get to class judging by the back packs. The soldier is just standing there, his gun loosely held but ready for immediate use, watching for trouble; the photo was snapped and then cropped to show only the child gazing up at him.

We do not know the source of the apprehension on her face, whether it is of the moment or a nightmare memory perpetrated on her or her family in the past by the army this man represents.

This photograph, however, tells a story of terror, with no alterations necessary.

This image stinks of brutality and fear. The boy already knows what harsh repercussions lie ahead for him now that he has fallen into the hands of the enemy. He knows he will be beaten, tortured, put through a false show of law and tried as an adult, then imprisoned for however long before he sees his family again. Everyone in his community is familiar with these matters. He knows his life will now take a different course and that his mother will weep.

In this case careful manipulation of the subjects, the seating and angle of the camera, were all that were needed to get the photographer's point across.

Personally, I never figured out if it meant God spoke to Bush and considered him a second son, Bush thought he was like Jesus blessing the world with his presence, or .... well many interpretations can be made. I preferred to take the satiric view because I could not believe the comparison was intentional at the time. Now, alas, I realize it might have been taken to make a salient point to a specific group of voters.

A few months later, right after the horrors of Abu Ghraib were made public,I found it in use on a political site. It was not used in humor at all but certainly not the original point the photographer intended.

I had planned to show some more examples but Picassa is telling me something about having reached my limit. Guess that means I have to figure something out!